Choir Boy
by Aperio
Summary: Teen boys should not be asked to sing. It is *not* cool.


"La. La."

A pause.

"Do-re-me-fah-soh-la-_hem_" The voice squeaked on the high note and broke into a fit of coughing.

"Damn."

Toby sighed and slumped back into the sofa, mournfully regarding the goblin giggling over the top of his father's armchair. The goblin raised its arms into a soprano position and opened its mouth, squeezing its eyes closed in a passionate imitation of the lanky boy. A well-aimed cushion knocked it off its perch, and the small creature of myth edged around the base of the la-z-boy, cackling in a high-pitched tone, to watch the huffing teen fling himself back in a would-be casual and disdainful pose.

Toby pouted.

The goblin tilted its head and watched him.

There was a long pause.

Toby exploded, verbally rather than literally, and crossed his arms.

"Oh, damn you! Go away, for goodness' sake! I don't need an audience."

If it had been anyone else, the goblin would probably have started giggling all over again and begun to wreak havoc of the kind forever amusing to goblins, brownies, Chihuahuas, and all other pint-sized species. Toby Williams wasn't just anyone, however, and the goblin appeared very nearly concerned.

"Toby hack-faced?" The creature inquired timidly, creeping up the side of his sofa.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Firstly, because you won't go away. Secondly, because you won't go away. And thirdly, Phungus, because I've only got a few more days before I have to practice this stupid choir thing with the rest of the school, and I'm going to look like a complete dork."

The goblin regarded the boy thoughtfully. Toby ignored him, kicking at the edge of the rug and eyeing the closed door nervously. Phungus pulled himself up to sit on the armrest, scratched his plank-shaped nose, and tapped the boy on the arm to grab his attention.

"Phungus was thinking, when lots of people are singing one person mouthing wrong way doesn't matter? Works for goblins." One side of Toby's mouth curled into a self-deprecating smirk.

"That would work beautifully in an ordinary situation, Phungus. Unfortunately, our music teacher doesn't know Sting from Steven Spielberg, and _I'm_ supposed to do some sort of solo thing. Without even having heard me sing before. So I'm still gonna look like a dork."

"Phungus can't help?"

"Don't sound so disappointed. No, unless you know a really good music teacher, you can't help."

Phungus regarded Toby in the eye, wide-eyed, for about two point five seconds. About then, a massive pointy-toothed grin appeared on his face and, looking as angelic as a wrinkled midget somewhat resembling a dry apple could, the goblin leaped from the sofa, scuttled across the rug, knocked a tennis ball off a table, and disappeared into thin air somewhere between the tv cabinet and a pile of video games.

Toby stared after the path bemusedly.

"I suppose that takes care of the first two problems." He finally decided, and, standing up, set back to practicing.

He tried the scale again, several times, becoming more and more frustrated with himself as his voice continually cracked or he sang off-key. Finally, exasperated, he snatched up the tennis ball lying on the floor and made to throw it.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Toby's voice cracked again, into a kind of strangled squeak, as he spun around. The Goblin King was lounging in an armchair, chin resting on the back of his hand.

Toby huffed, feeling incredibly awkward, and waved the ball around before letting it sink limply to his side. He half turned away, giving the king a resentful glance out the corner of his eye. Jareth effortlessly achieved the pose he had been trying for earlier, and the teen didn't think it was a conscious thing.

The otherworldly man tilted his head in a birdlike fashion, scrutinising him in a way that made the boy feel even smaller. Desperately dredging up lessons Sarah had beaten into him at an early age that went something to the tune of _don't insult the fae_ (a rule she never appeared to follow where the blonde before him was concerned), Toby attempted to curb his tongue a little when the examination became too much.

"Is there a reason you're here… _your majesty_?"

A slight smirk crept onto the angular face.

"Yes. You see, a certain goblin has informed me that you asked him to find you a music teacher. Phungus feels that he has discharged his duty, and I feel… a certain curiosity."

Toby's jaw dropped.

"Oh, no – I didn't really mean that he should go and-"

"You know," Jareth gave his head a dismissive jerk. "Your family _really_ needs to start thinking before it speaks. Your sister learnt something about that." Toby suddenly felt very nervous as the king's two-toned gaze focused on him with unusual intensity. A slow smile curled the hard mouth.

"Perhaps," he added, lounging back. "Perhaps, it is about time _you_ learnt."

Toby gulped. He had the feeling Jareth might take his scary-villain-teacher-king duties seriously enough to make good on that threat.

"Gah-yeah… but then I might be late for this choir thing, and it'd have been useless for you turning up here anyway!"

Jareth smirked.

"There are ways around that. Sometimes I wonder how closely Sarah related her little fairy-tale to you. However, you still haven't told me what this – 'choir thing' – is."

Temporary reprieve. Phew.

Toby sent another desperately quick glance towards the closed door, less worried about the screaming that would possibly start should his parents catch sight of any legendary creature (he'd long since learned they could one and all look after themselves) than he was about the certain embarassment that would follow them discovering him trying to _sing_.

"Fine. The teech decided that rather than every class muddling together some stupid show for play night this year, like we have for _ages_, that she'd get together some great big musical performance thing that everyone'd have to join in on. She seemed to have some sort of problem with the way some classes managed to skive off in the past. So now everyone's being forced to learn at least one song for a weird musical, while the drama kids get the easy acting bits."

Jareth's expression of amused interest hadn't wavered one quarter of an inch.

"And with everyone of every class required to sing, you are singled out for a solo on your extraordinary talent?" Toby scowled.

"One of a whole heap of solos. Teacher picked people at complete random, once she'd picked everyone who was in the actual choir or she knew could sing." Jareth's smirk grew.

"Ah – it had absolutely nothing to do with an incident involving sheet music, staple guns, the interior of the music room and said teacher's inherent revenge therein?"

Toby spluttered. It seemed like an appropriate reaction. He then added a few muttered words regarding kings with nothing better to do with their time than pry into other people's business, a few more astringent terms thrown in between. Jareth smirked.

"Of course not." The king said, lounging back in his chair. Toby busied himself with looking miserable. He didn't find it very hard.

"Well then?" The languid tone interrupted his renewed sulking. Toby looked back up, caught completely off guard. Jareth gave him a _do get a move on_ expression. Toby choked.

"Beg pardon?"

"Sing! No. _That_ is a gurgle, not a song. Try again."

Coming as close to dying of humiliation as was physically possible without committing suicide, and an interesting shade of red besides, Toby desperately dredged up his scale one last time. A spectator would have wondered that the extra effort he managed to put in didn't make him more note-perfect. It was with an Atlantic Ocean deep sense of mortification that Toby realised he was actually even worse than before.

Reaching his last note (or squeak, as it turned out), the teen's voice petered away miserably. The Goblin King regarded him inscrutably. He may have been thinking that Sarah William's younger sibling resembled a bedraggled dog at that point in time. Regardless, he wasn't saying anything.

Toby watched the Fae hum thoughtfully, still inspecting him from head to toe with unnerving concentration. Finally, there was an incisive nod of the wild head and the king came to his feet.

"If you feel you _must_ begin 'at the very beginning'," Toby hid a half grin – obviously someone had been watching Sarah's videos again. "Then you are beginning in the wrong place.

"Huh?"

Jareth looked impatient.

"The beginning is never within the singing, as your so-called _teacher_ should have explained." He strolled around the boy, who was perversely encouraged by his acid tone. "The beginning – of any endeavour – is always in the preparation."

Toby followed his movements from the edge of his eye, nervousness trickling back in.

"Preparation?"

"Yes, parrot. Preparation! You sing like a hunched over troll. Straighten your back…" Toby felt his back straighten in rather a hurry. "Keep your shoulders back…" The boy obeyed quickly. Jareth looked a little disappointed. "And breathe."

Toby's posture collapsed again with an incredulous look.

"_Breathe?_ Is that the best advice you have to offer?"

The change in Jareth's demeanour was startling. He leant back against the wall, eyes falling half closed. Even those movements somehow radiated an aura of stillness. Toby gulped, unnerved by the inhuman motionlessness, and stifled a groan. Why did the Fae have to be so touchy? And scary. Somehow scary.

"Sorry. I mean, there isn't any special way of breathing, is there? So how does it help to _breathe?_"

Jareth didn't say anything. Toby cursed under his breath, realising that he'd made his own riddle. He started to pace around the room himself, directing another nervous glance at the door.

"Fine. So, if you breathe more deeply, then you'd have more breath to sustain a note for longer, right? And your voice shouldn't go all over the place the way it does when you're short of breath. But I still don't see how that helps."

He turned to face the ethereal king. Jareth was watching him intently again, which Toby took to be a good sign for his answer. The major problem with fairy-tale creatures, he reflected, was that they demanded you follow a strict etiquette, which he suspected that they didn't know themselves, let alone any poor blighter required to play by their rules. He thought rapidly to phrase his own question.

"_Is_ there a better way to breathe for singing?" He finally asked, rapidly feeling exhausted from trying to work around the Goblin King. He still couldn't work out how Sarah had kept it up for some ten hours. A smile began to curl Jareth's mouth.

"The answer lies both in the amount of breath and in your control of it."

"Which is no answer at all! You breathe with your lungs don't you?"

Jareth's head inclined sharply.

"The hell? What else can you breath with?" Toby gave a startled look down his torso as though he had only just realised it was there. He began to experiment, drawing his chest out to its fullest extent, holding his breath.

Jareth watched intently, a Puck-like grin on his lips.

The teen was startled when he realised that his stomach seemed to be holding more air than his lungs.

"It is difficult to control the movement of a rib-cage. It is made of bone, after all." Jareth ran a loving finger across the intricate, slightly grotesque, decoration of his coat. "However, your diaphragm is a muscle and controls the movement of your ribs. Therefore, the amount of air held between your ribs."

Toby was beginning to feel more confident. Jareth observed him and rapidly gave him orders, whip-like.

"Again! Stand straight, shoulders back, head high and breathe from your diaphragm. Straight, Toby, straight. Tripping over your own feet while swaying back and forward does nothing for a song unless you plan it to be a comedy. Feet at shoulder width and balanced."

Pausing in the moment before practicing a note, as Jareth's expectant expression seemed to indicate he should, Toby saw his reflection in the mirror and felt surprised. Standing as he did, he appeared confident, relaxed. In control. When he looked back, Jareth's eyes held a knowing expression.

"Why did you show me that?" He asked, rather than singing. Jareth gave the odd, reluctant sidewards look he wore when forced by the right question into telling a truth.

"You wish to know how to sing. No, Toby: I mean that you _genuinely_ wish to know how to sing. Not for a 'choir thing' you are forced into, for your own selfish self."

The inevitable insult was lost on Toby as the heat rose in his wide-eyed face. So. Not. Good.

"I do not! Choirs are not cool. Singing is _not_ cool."

"Singing is not just for choir boys in white robes!" Jareth's voice lashed him again. "Which one of the idolised crowd you follow like a sheep in that opinion completely shuns music?"

He was behind Toby again, and the startled boy barely met his hard gaze in the mirror before dropping his eyes. The king's glance seemed to soften a little as he did.

"Toby," he said softly. "Popular opinion often renders a thing unfashionable, but the multitude that makes that decision rarely puts much thought into its own fads. They are sheep that are just as likely to turn in the opposite direction should they see a single good example they wish they could emulate."

Another rueful half-smirk touched Toby's mouth.

"Is that the feel-good talk, Goblin King? I'm not a fashion leader, anyway."

Jareth sniffed fastidiously, stalking away.

"Don't think your own mawkishness will ever change the fact that not only is singing popular in the Underground, but I make it so."

"M' _not_ mawkish." He didn't have to look to see the delightedly obnoxious expression on Jareth's face.

"You? Shouting your opinions to the world because it can't hear them from your actions, the way it does for everyone else, carrying yourself like a two-flippered turtle – back slumping nearly into your knees-"

"Hey! You just…"

"Yes?"

Toby slumped like the afore-mentioned turtle. Jareth gave him a distinctly unimpressed look.

"No fashion leader, no." He jeered. "Toby, when _will_ you learn that the people around you are usually fools incapable of creating their own opinion of you. They will usually take your own opinion of yourself – and whatever hobbies you have – at your own evaluation."

For a long moment, there was silence in the room. Toby finally managed to lift his eyes to meet the closed expression on Jareth's face.

"They'd just laugh…" He trailed off uncertainly. The Goblin King smirked a little.

"If you didn't push forward the idea that singing is the best thing ever, as though you wanted their opinion on it? If you said nothing about it at all, but let them judge a performance they could see you enjoyed, because _obviously_ you were meant to enjoy singing? If they were fully aware that singing is an exercise that will eventually cut down the ridiculous cracks your voice currently makes, wavering between boy and man?"

If Toby had been watching himself in the mirror, he might have seen a devious little light coming on in his eye. Jareth observed, and settled comfortably back in the armchair.

"Now." He said.

*******

The whole practice thing wasn't as easy as it had seemed when he first started, and (much to his disappointment), Jareth's little 'talk' with him hadn't instantly made him a virtuoso. Not only that, but the couple of hours the family had said they were going to be gone seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time to tick over. As did the hour hand off the clock.

If it were physically possible, Toby would have said that time was rearranging itself for his little 'practice' session.

So, it wasn't particularly surprising, in the overall sense, when his mother, father and big sister managed to catch him completely unawares when they walked in on him.

Toby _just_ managed to catch his involuntary squeak in his throat, determined to never make that particular noise again, as the doorknob turned and Mrs Williams came into the room with a cheerful smile. He wasn't able to stop the involuntary glance that flew towards the Goblin King.

Jareth was still lounging in the armchair, unconcernedly observing the new arrival, who appeared to be blissfully unaware of his presence.

Toby, ungraciously receiving a hug from his mother, decided not to think about that.

Karen automatically returned the tennis ball to the table as she went to sit down in the second-comfiest armchair, for some reason deciding not to take the one the Goblin King was, all unbeknownst to her, leisurely occupying. Her bright eyes took in Toby's position and the CD player, and made one of the deadly accurate leaps of logic that only mothers are capable of.

"Oh, Toby, you've been practising for the performance!"

Her son groaned quietly.

"Yes, mum."

"Wonderful." A masculine voice applauded. Robert Williams collapsed lengthways into the lounge, grinning at his apprehensive son from his new bed. "You'll be able to entertain us, then. Sarah!"

"Stick a CD in and give us a demonstration, Toby," his mother smiled gently. Jareth was chuckling quietly, apparently staying for the performance.

"SARAH!" Robert repeated determinedly, adding a description of the afternoon's singing program. An echoing reply came back from the bedrooms. Toby sighed and fiddled with the CDs as his sister ran down the staircase. He really didn't want to be testing his newfound resolution to borrow Jareth's confidence _this_ soon. Still, he picked a song as his sister wandered in the door.

As was to be expected, Sarah gave a definite start as she came in, catching sight of his majesty immediately even if her parents were yet to realise they had company. Toby expected that, but was surprised by the double take she gave the king. Somewhat slower than her, it wasn't until she bit her lip and flicked a quick glance around the room that Toby realised she was counting seats.

That was when a manic grin threatened to take over his face.

Sarah closed her eyes briefly.

"Budge up, won't you Dad?" She said, somewhat hopelessly, Toby thought. "You don't need to take up the whole lounge."

Robert wasn't shifting. Jareth was grinning.

"So what? There's a whole chair over there – you don't need to steal mine!"

Sarah took a few unwary steps into the room, mouth open (Toby expected) to argue that idea immediately. Nobody but Toby saw the rather fast movement of a tightly clad leg as she passed.

Sarah sat down very quickly, wide eyes held rigidly to the front.

Jareth had an uncompromising grip on her middle equally quickly.

Toby smirked and pressed play.

After all, if the wicked grin nestling closely to his sister's ear was anything to go by, this whole confidence thing had unexpected perks when you got the hang of it. And if Jareth could be so comfortable playing with the kind of fire he had just lit, judging by the expression on Sarah's face, what was a little singing in comparison?

Toby's grin expanded. He threw his shoulders back, planted his feet firmly and tilted his jaw up, keeping time to the beat of the music with one finger.

_________

And wonder of wonders, I've actually completed a short story XD


End file.
